The Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Frances Hodgson BurnettЧитать онлайн книгу.
She went and stood before his chair, with her hands clasped together against her breast.
“You sent the things to me,” she said, in a joyful emotional little voice, “the beautiful, beautiful things? YOU sent them!”
“Yes, poor, dear child, I did,” he answered her. He was weak and broken with long illness and trouble, but he looked at her with the look she remembered in her father’s eyes—that look of loving her and wanting to take her in his arms. It made her kneel down by him, just as she used to kneel by her father when they were the dearest friends and lovers in the world.
“Then it is you who are my friend,” she said; “it is you who are my friend!” And she dropped her face on his thin hand and kissed it again and again.
“The man will be himself again in three weeks,” Mr. Carmichael said aside to his wife. “Look at his face already.”
In fact, he did look changed. Here was the “Little Missus,” and he had new things to think of and plan for already. In the first place, there was Miss Minchin. She must be interviewed and told of the change which had taken place in the fortunes of her pupil.
Sara was not to return to the seminary at all. The Indian gentleman was very determined upon that point. She must remain where she was, and Mr. Carmichael should go and see Miss Minchin himself.
“I am glad I need not go back,” said Sara. “She will be very angry. She does not like me; though perhaps it is my fault, because I do not like her.”
But, oddly enough, Miss Minchin made it unnecessary for Mr. Carmichael to go to her, by actually coming in search of her pupil herself. She had wanted Sara for something, and on inquiry had heard an astonishing thing. One of the housemaids had seen her steal out of the area with something hidden under her cloak, and had also seen her go up the steps of the next door and enter the house.
“What does she mean!” cried Miss Minchin to Miss Amelia.
“I don’t know, I’m sure, sister,” answered Miss Amelia. “Unless she has made friends with him because he has lived in India.”
“It would be just like her to thrust herself upon him and try to gain his sympathies in some such impertinent fashion,” said Miss Minchin. “She must have been in the house for two hours. I will not allow such presumption. I shall go and inquire into the matter, and apologize for her intrusion.”
Sara was sitting on a footstool close to Mr. Carrisford’s knee, and listening to some of the many things he felt it necessary to try to explain to her, when Ram Dass announced the visitor’s arrival.
Sara rose involuntarily, and became rather pale; but Mr. Carrisford saw that she stood quietly, and showed none of the ordinary signs of child terror.
Miss Minchin entered the room with a sternly dignified manner. She was correctly and well dressed, and rigidly polite.
“I am sorry to disturb Mr. Carrisford,” she said; “but I have explanations to make. I am Miss Minchin, the proprietress of the Young Ladies’ Seminary next door.”
The Indian gentleman looked at her for a moment in silent scrutiny. He was a man who had naturally a rather hot temper, and he did not wish it to get too much the better of him.
“So you are Miss Minchin?” he said.
“I am, sir.”
“In that case,” the Indian gentleman replied, “you have arrived at the right time. My solicitor, Mr. Carmichael, was just on the point of going to see you.”
Mr. Carmichael bowed slightly, and Miss Minchin looked from him to Mr. Carrisford in amazement.
“Your solicitor!” she said. “I do not understand. I have come here as a matter of duty. I have just discovered that you have been intruded upon through the forwardness of one of my pupils—a charity pupil. I came to explain that she intruded without my knowledge.” She turned upon Sara. “Go home at once,” she commanded indignantly. “You shall be severely punished. Go home at once.”
The Indian gentleman drew Sara to his side and patted her hand.
“She is not going.”
Miss Minchin felt rather as if she must be losing her senses.
“Not going!” she repeated.
“No,” said Mr. Carrisford. “She is not going home—if you give your house that name. Her home for the future will be with me.”
Miss Minchin fell back in amazed indignation.
“With YOU! With YOU sir! What does this mean?”
“Kindly explain the matter, Carmichael,” said the Indian gentleman; “and get it over as quickly as possible.” And he made Sara sit down again, and held her hands in his—which was another trick of her papa’s.
Then Mr. Carmichael explained—in the quiet, level-toned, steady manner of a man who knew his subject, and all its legal significance, which was a thing Miss Minchin understood as a business woman, and did not enjoy.
“Mr. Carrisford, madam,” he said, “was an intimate friend of the late Captain Crewe. He was his partner in certain large investments. The fortune which Captain Crewe supposed he had lost has been recovered, and is now in Mr. Carrisford’s hands.”
“The fortune!” cried Miss Minchin; and she really lost color as she uttered the exclamation. “Sara’s fortune!”
“It WILL be Sara’s fortune,” replied Mr. Carmichael, rather coldly. “It is Sara’s fortune now, in fact. Certain events have increased it enormously. The diamond mines have retrieved themselves.”
“The diamond mines!” Miss Minchin gasped out. If this was true, nothing so horrible, she felt, had ever happened to her since she was born.
“The diamond mines,” Mr. Carmichael repeated, and he could not help adding, with a rather sly, unlawyer-like smile, “There are not many princesses, Miss Minchin, who are richer than your little charity pupil, Sara Crewe, will be. Mr. Carrisford has been searching for her for nearly two years; he has found her at last, and he will keep her.”
After which he asked Miss Minchin to sit down while he explained matters to her fully, and went into such detail as was necessary to make it quite clear to her that Sara’s future was an assured one, and that what had seemed to be lost was to be restored to her tenfold; also, that she had in Mr. Carrisford a guardian as well as a friend.
Miss Minchin was not a clever woman, and in her excitement she was silly enough to make one desperate effort to regain what she could not help seeing she had lost through her worldly folly.
“He found her under my care,” she protested. “I have done everything for her. But for me she should have starved in the streets.”
Here the Indian gentleman lost his temper.
“As to starving in the streets,” he said, “she might have starved more comfortably there than in your attic.”
“Captain Crewe left her in my charge,” Miss Minchin argued. “She must return to it until she is of age. She can be a parlor boarder again. She must finish her education. The law will interfere in my behalf.”
“Come, come, Miss Minchin,” Mr. Carmichael interposed, “the law will do nothing of the sort. If Sara herself wishes to return to you, I dare say Mr. Carrisford might not refuse to allow it. But that rests with Sara.”
“Then,” said Miss Minchin, “I appeal to Sara. I have not spoiled you, perhaps,” she said awkwardly to the little girl; “but you know that your papa was pleased with your progress. And—ahem—I have always been fond of you.”
Sara’s green-gray eyes fixed themselves on her with the quiet, clear look Miss Minchin particularly disliked.
“Have